Sparks Fly
by mischiefmanaged1734
Summary: "Still clinging to the glass sliding-door I screamed 'YOU CAN'T DENY YOUR LOVE FOR ME FOREVER, BLACK' ... 'Ignore the freak, Professor; she's mentally unbalanced...' Sirius said to Dumbledore..." Yeah, that pretty much explained us. *Revised version.*


CHAPTER ONE  
>MARSHMALLOWS AND UNDYING LOVE<p>

I was lingering in the pleasant haze of what was the remnant of a warm, familiar dream. It was a dream I frequently had, filled with a shadowy figure that smelled faintly like Christmas cookies, rain, and something earthy that distinctly said _Quidditch. _I could never quite capture his full face, but a few details remained in my mind when I awoke – a laugh that was accepting and sarcastic at the same time, a leather jacket, calloused hands.

I was trying to hold onto it, if just for a few more minutes, but Pepper decided to take the moment and chew on my ear. I don't know if you've ever had a hungry twenty-five pound cat with razored little teeth try to tear your ear off first thing in the morning, but it's not something that can be easily ignored.

Peeking blearily through half-opened eyes I noticed that I was, in fact, was now running late.

Again.

There had not been a single year that I had managed to get to King's Cross on time. The idea of me being there early was positively laughable. It never failed that I would oversleep and then rush to make onto Platform 9¾ before the Hogwarts Express rolled out and left me behind. This had never happened to me yet, but there was always this one last chance to miss the train.

I was like that at school, too – always running late. If it wasn't for Lily, who actually claimed to _like _mornings, then I would have a sky high list of tardys, and I'd be in detention as much as the Marauders. Well, maybe not quite _that _much, but I'd still be in there quite a bit more than I was now.

Pushed by adrenaline and a fear of being so late that I was left behind, I sprang up out of my nice warm bed and rushed to get ready, taking an extremely quick shower and not even bothering to dry my hair completely afterwards. I couldn't use magic on it because I still had a few weeks till I was seventeen, and I didn't have the time to blow-dry it. I pulled on the first thing I could find that hadn't been stowed away in my luggage the night before – a pair of faded jeans and a comfortable Quidditch sweatshirt – and quickly put a little powder and mascara on.

I entered the kitchen in a rush, wanting to at least make some coffee before I left. If I didn't have some I'd be a right bitch all day and an exhausted bitch at that.

While I waited on the coffee, I pulled my still slightly damp hair up into a messy bun and decided that Alice or Marlene could fix it on the long ride to Hogwarts. Trying to locate my shoes, I realized that I had packed every pair I owned. In the end I had to unlock my trunk and search for a pair. After that I relocked the truck, pulled on my boots, and poured myself a cup of coffee. I looked around for Pepper, and took about ten minutes of my time trying to shove her into her carrier.

Then, finally ready to go and still running a little behind, I noticed that Dad wasn't home.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I lugged all my crap downstairs with one hand, coffee cup in the other, and called for the Knight Bus.

"Now, where are we off to this morning?" the conductor asked me as I stepped on, heaving my luggage with me. he didn't offer to help me with it any.

"King's Cross station, fast as you possibly can," I panted anxiously, handing over eleven Sickles.

A twisted grin came over the conductor's face. "Well, you see, Mrs. Betty needs to get to her coin convention on time, and then old Hanson is with us today, meeting someone at the Leaky Cauldron at 11:30, it'd be so rude for him to be late, you know how that is. Then we have –"

Interrupting, I said, "I _need _to be at King's Cross. Actually, I needed to be there five minu-"

It was the conductor's turn to cut me off as he whispered, "All I'm saying is that maybe, if you was to be _real _worried about it like you says you is, you would be willing to hand over five more Sickles."

This made me pissed beyond measure, but I decided in the end I might as well just suck it up and hand over the money. Arguing seemed pointless with him, and I wasn't poor exactly, with my Dad being a well-known doctor. Besides, I needed to get there soon. I simply could _not _miss the train.

So I handed the money over, fuming inside.

…

"Marshmallow!" I heard a deep voice coming from behind me and instantly knew the source. It could only have been Sirius, an extremely annoying friend of mine that I both hated and loved all at the same time. We were best mates and he made laugh till I snorted milk out my nose, but sometimes he made me so angry I could strangle him. He belonged to the infamous group of boys known as the Marauders, a team of four who got into trouble without even trying. They were my friends too, but Sirius and I had always been especially close since third year when I had helped James and him dump a bucket of squid eyes on Snape.

"Hey, Freak," I called nonchalantly over my shoulder at him, not even bothering to turn back and look at him. I was hoping he'd get lost in the throng of people encircling us.

If only I was as lucky. Turns out, I'm not.

"Miss me over summer break?" he asked, sidling up next to me, with a smirk on his face.

"Oh yes, you were all I thought of," I said sarcastically, trying to concentrate on pushing my cart around the many Hogwarts students that filled Platform 9¾ and made it hard to maneuver said cart.

"Are you trying to ask me out, Hopkins?" Sirius said cheekily. Why he called me by my last name I shall never know.

"God, I knew you were stupid when you failed those O.W.L.s, but really, now you can't even comprehend sarcasm?" I said as I finally reached the luggage compartment and started to heave my trunk into it. I swatted at Sirius's hand when he tried to help me. "I've got it, you git, and don't need _your _help."

"Damn, I was just trying to be nice for once."

"_Suuure_ you were." I eyed him disbelievingly and finally turned back to my trunk. "You were probably about to try to fondle me."

"_Fondle _you? Who the hell says that?" He let out his distinct bark-like laugh and I had to snicker a little at my own stupidity.

We walked side by side comfortably enveloped in silence until Sirius spotted James and his parents. Since he lived with them, he felt the urge to act like they were his actual parents and he went over to say goodbye and gather James. When I told him to go on without me and turned to find a compartment before they were _all _full, I felt his hand catch my arm just as I had turned away. He smiled wolfishly and drug me towards the Potters.

"This is Summer," James introduced me as I stood there with my hands knotted awkwardly behind my back and ankles crossed, not knowing what to do. I wasn't very good at things like this.

"Oh, so this is the infamous Summer Hopkins, is it?" Mr. Potter said smiling warmly at me.

I saw James and Sirius glance at each other for a split second with a strange look on their faces.

"Well, I don't know about infamous..." I said letting myself smile a little.

"James and Sirius have told us quite a few stories about you-" Mrs. Potter said laughing a little, but was cut off immediately by James and Sirius themselves, both sounding rushed and like they were making excuses.

"Anyway, we'd better get onto the train - "

"Yeah, it'll probably be gone soon – "

"You know that conductor – "

"Yeah, always off so soon – "

"And it _is _our last year – "

"Yeah, it'll probably be gone soon – "

I shook my head a little at their ridiculousness and wondered just what stories Mrs. and Mr. Potter had heard about me that James and Sirius didn't want retold. Smiling, I said goodbye to the Potters and walked with James and Sirius towards the train, where James split off and went to his Head Boy meeting. He looked happy as a clam, since it was obvious who the Head Girl was. _That boy_, I thought exasperatedly. Him and his creepy stalker-like obsession with Lily worried me sometimes.

"Shit, I got that thing," Sirius said, his face crumpling into a look of dread.

"That's not vague," I said sarcastically.

He smiled at me and for a second I felt my breath hitch in my throat. It was this annoying thing that it did every once and a while when the stupid boy smiled at me like that, and I did not appreciate it at all.

"Career advisement with Dumbledore."

"On the train?" I said skeptically.

"Yep."

I jumped up on the train and turned so that I was blocking Sirius from getting on, and just stood there. "You're shitting me."

He laughed tried to choke out a "No," but the face that appeared behind me apparently did not find it nearly as funny, as I heard a frantic Lily screech, "Summer! There are first years. Right. There."

"Oh, sorry, I'll move." I sidestepped into the hallway of the train as Lily followed along behind me, James trailing after her looking like a happy puppy. Sirius didn't come up and must have run off to his "career advisement meeting" with "Dumbledore."

"I wasn't telling you to _move, _I was telling you to stop cursing," Lily said looking just like how I always thought a mum would when scolding a child.

"Like the gits have never heard a curse before…" I murmured under my breath, but didn't press the matter as Lily looked livid. I hadn't warned her that her new Head Boy would be the one person at Hogwarts she loathed the most.

Oops.

"Come on, James, we have work to do…" she said, and started to head off though James was still firmly planted where he was, with a shell-shocked look on his face.

"You…you…I – she – " James spluttered. "She called me …James." He sighed the last word and I couldn't help but laugh at him.

"Go after her, Prongs," I said, patting him on the back.

…

I slid the glass door open and sat down in the only semi-empty compartment there was left; it held a sleeping Remus (for some unknown reason he was always sleeping on the ride to Hogwarts). He seemed to be forever tired. I know he had good reason to be, but my heart broke every time I thought about him.

I picked up a random book of Remus's that he had left on the seat beside him and whittled away the long and tedious train ride reading it. It was filled myths about werewolves. You would think he would have heard enough about the subject, but apparently not.

I guess I nodded off, because the next thing I knew was that it was steadily growing dark outside, the vast blanket of night compressing the sunlight into nothingness. Remus had his hand on my shoulder and was shaking me awake gently. I jerked awake instantly, trying not to linger in the shadowy dream I had had yet again, and said, "What? We're there already?"

"No, no… I just haven't seen Padfoot at all since the train left, and…he has my shoes…can you go find him?" I looked down at his feet and sure enough, someone had stolen his shoes. How I missed that earlier, I have no idea.

"Yeah, whatever, I need something to do anyway," I mumbled and walked out into the hallway, still trying to shake my head clear of vanilla and dark hair.

I hopped from cart to cart till I found Sirius in a compartment with Dumbledore. I was slightly surprised he'd told the truth for once, and wasn't just off snogging some rogue stranger.

Then I had a sudden idea.

I ran towards the sturdy (thankfully!) glass door and slammed into it with all my weight. It was really quite a miracle it didn't break. Guess that's what the magic's for.

Still clinging to the glass sliding-door, I screamed, "YOU CAN'T DENY YOUR LOVE FOR ME FOREVER, BLACK!"

His face was red as a beet and his mouth was hanging wide open. I had never actually seen him look that mad at me, and trust me, I'd seen him mad a _lot_.

"Ignore the freak, Professor; she's mentally unbalanced…" I heard Sirius say to Dumbledore through the glass as I doubled over in a fit of laughter.

"It's quite alright, Mr. Black. Mentally stable people rarely make any change in the world at all, plus they're quite boring. Anyway, I think we're done here, and you obviously have Miss Hopkins to deal with, so I'll leave you to it," Dumbledore said.

Sirius came out looking hassled, his hair sticking up from where he'd run his hand through it, and muttered, "What the hell?"

I wiped the tears that had accumulated from laughing so hard out of my eyes and said "Remus wanted his shoes back."

He just shook his head.

I turned around and saw Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkling amusedly at us. I swear I saw him wink, and I couldn't help but let the smallest of smiles tug at my mouth.

…

"I wish they didn't have to take such a bloody long time to Sort. Some of us are hungry here…" I grumbled.

"Marshmallow, you should have eaten on the train," Sirius said.

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, except that you ate all my pumpkin pasties. And don't call me that, I'm trying not to think about food right now." I said, watching the terrified little first-years taking their sweet time to be Sorted.

At last, "Wilmington, Reed." ("RAVENCLAW!") was called, and the shell-shocked blonde kid sat himself down at the smart-arse table. I sat there impatiently waiting for food to appear and completely blocked out whatever it was that Dumbledore was saying.

Then the most amazing and wonderful thing happened – the food appeared. Turkey, honey-basted Cornish hens, potato soup, macaroni and cheese, peas (_ick_)– practically anything you could ever think of – was suddenly just there on gold and silver plates that ran along the four magnificent tables. I breathed in deeply, closing my eyes. Our goblets filled themselves up with pumpkin juice as I piled a little of everything onto my plate (except for the peas; I left them there) and practically inhaled my food, I ate it so fast.

"Dang, are you going to leave any food for the rest of us?" Sirius asked me, putting a bit of roast on his own plate.

"Oh, come off it, Padfoot. Let her eat at least before you two start up with the flirting again," James told Sirius from across the table.

"Wrrnaflittineeasaagirfren," I mumbled through a mouthful of food.

"Excuse me?" James said, as Sirius cooed a "what have I told you about talking with your mouth full?" at the same time. However humorous it may be, James tried not to encourage our bickering. Usually, he failed, because hey, we were pretty amusing, but at least he tried. Part of me thought it may be to impress Lily though, because the only times he really made an effort seemed to be when she was there.

I swallowed. "We're not flirting. Besides, he's dating Ally."

Silence.

"Um." Remus said, finally deciding to talk. Sometimes I thought he didn't even know how.

I got the strange feeling that they weren't telling me something.

"Ally, right? The weird little Ravenclaw?" I asked.

"Oh, that was ages ago. Keep up." Sirius said testily.

"Yeah, now he's dating Hayl-," annoying little Peter Pettigrew piped up from the end of the table, but James was shaking his head stupidly trying to signal him to stop. Peter clamped his mouth shut stupidly with a look of desperate fear on his face, but he didn't get it fast enough. I had heard.

_Hayley Snow. Oh, my dear sweet Merlin, _I thought, my head swimming.

Hayley was in our year, a Hufflepuff, and though I didn't know her extremely well, I had enough reason to not want to try and get to know her any better. She was sweet to the male populace, but most girls were. Short and petite, chestnut brown hair that touched her shoulders and brown eyes, she was pretty. She was eternally happy, a little burst of energy. Not in the same way Alice or Marlene were, though. There was always something so over-the-top about Hayley that made her seem like the farthest thing from genuine. And it drove me nuts. Since I had had to have my soul removed as a small child to make room for all my sarcasm, I just didn't have the patience to cope with her obnoxious personality.

Wrenching myself back to the present, I spluttered a "HAHAHAHA. How can you even see her? She's like four feet high." I laughed, trying to find it all amusing. I mean, why wouldn't I find it funny that six-foot-four Padfoot was going out with a midget? I should've thought it was _hi_-lar-i-ous. But there was something burning at the back of my throat – anger. I swallowed it and quickly kept talking. "Besides, I've heard she'll snog anything that moves, so it's not that impressive."

James and Remus, acting like a pair of idiots, gave each other a look that very obviously said 'she's-obviously-jealous.' I narrowed my eyes at them and said, "Hey, toerags – I know what you're thinking. Stop. Now. I'm not jealous."

"That proves that you are." James could be _so_ annoying sometimes.

I rolled my eyes, the same blue as my father's, but was immediately distracted by all the plates magically clearing themselves. Even though _some _of us (namely me) weren't done eating yet.

"NO! MY FOOOOOODDD! It's disappeared…" I looked longingly at my empty plate as it sparkled back at me.

"You had to have eaten four plates full," Prongs said. Which he was totally over exaggerating about.

"I did n…" I faded as I saw mountains of pumpkin cupcakes, caldron cakes, treacle tart, fudge, tea cakes, chocolate mousse, and white-chocolate brownies appear on the cleared table. All thoughts of Miranda Ackerly and Sirius Black dropped out of sight.

…

That night I climbed the staircase up to the girls' dormitory with Lilly and Alice, wishing I hadn't eaten the last two snickerdoodles, because I was now about to throw up I was so full. I was also very sleepy.

It had a been a long day.

Yet that night, I lay awake for at least two hours after my roommates, Lilly, Marlene, Sally, and Alice had pulled their curtains to a close and the lights had been diminished, looking up at the top of the canopy of my four-poster. I couldn't help but think of that prick of anger I felt when I thought of Hayley and Sirius. Well, he was my best friend and Hayley didn't seem to want anything to do with anybody without a knob, so I thought I had reason enough to be angry. Also, I supposed I wanted the best for him, and Hayley wasn't. At least that's what I told myself as I drifted off into a dream about a Hogsmeade visit and rain.

**A/N: I'm back with the new and improved version of Sparks Fly, and I'm really excited about where it's going.  
>I'd like to hear some feedback. Personally, I think its loads better, but I'm not 100% sure.<br>I promise to try and update every week or two. It just depends on how fast my beta can get it back to me.  
>Please leave me a <strong>review**:) Please?  
>So glad to be back! Much love, mischiefmanaged1734.<strong>


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